Prospect Park: Brooklyn’s Greenest Escape

You could say that Prospect Park is Brooklyn's Central Park, and you wouldn't be lying. Did you know it was designed by the same landscape architects behind Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux?

This huge park is one of Brooklyn's signature attractions and there's plenty to do here, especially fun activities for kids.

Prospect Park sits in the middle of several Brooklyn neighborhoods, including two beautiful ones I recommend you visit: Park Slope and Prospect Heights.

What to do in Prospect Park, Brooklyn

I already mentioned that it often gets compared to Central Park in Manhattan, but there's one fundamental difference: it was designed to look wild.

As you walk the trails, you'll come across stretches where the native flora is untouched. That gives you a sense of what the city looked like before the Europeans arrived.

That was exactly Law Olmsted and Vaux's goal: they wanted to show what New York's native woodlands looked like before it became one of the world's great cities.

Here's a rundown of the highlights of Brooklyn's most important park:

1. Grand Army Plaza

The main entrance to Prospect Park sits right next to the imposing Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, a traffic circle with a triumphal arch dedicated to the Union soldiers of the American Civil War (the war you've seen in so many movies).

2. Meadows and lakes in Prospect Park

Prospect Park has a huge open field, the Long Meadow. In summer it fills up with picnickers, just like the lawns of Central Park.

South of the Long Meadow you'll find Prospect Park Lake, the only lake in Brooklyn. It's enormous!

3. Prospect Park Zoo

On the east side of the park, along Flatbush Avenue, is the Prospect Park Zoo, a nice outing if you're traveling with kids.

This Brooklyn zoo was closed from September 29, 2023, because of the severe damage it took during Tropical Storm Ophelia. The good news is that it reopened on May 25, 2024.

While I'm at it, there's another fantastic attraction for little ones in this Brooklyn park: an antique carousel that's been running since 1920.

4. The Boathouse

The Boathouse is a gorgeous Beaux-Arts building, an architectural gem of the park, now a visitor center and a popular venue for weddings and other private events.

Prospect Park's boathouse is especially charming during fall in New York.

5. LeFrak Center at Lakeside

At the LeFrak Center, during winter in New York, you'll find one of the city's most classic ice skating rinks.

In summer it turns into a roller skating rink, and that's also the season when you can take out pedal boats and kayaks on the lake.

6. Smorgasburg Market in Prospect Park

Every Sunday from April to October, 11 am to 6 pm, the Smorgasburg market takes over Prospect Park.

It's a farmers market and also a food fair with more than 100 open-air vendor stalls. It sets up in the Breeze Hill section of the park, entering from Lincoln Road.

It's a hipster gathering spot, and the New York Times once called it «the Woodstock of eating.» So besides eating well, you get to see Brooklyn's cool crowd in its natural habitat 😉

On Saturdays the same market runs at East River Park in Williamsburg.

7. Cultural events in Prospect Park

If you're visiting NYC in summer, you can catch one of the open-air concerts held in this Brooklyn park.

One of the biggest events is the Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, with free music and performing arts shows at the park's Bandshell.

More parks in Brooklyn

East of Prospect Park, across Flatbush Avenue, is the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. In fact, the garden is part of the larger park complex.

I seriously recommend a visit (especially during spring in New York) because the gardens are stunning.

A little farther east of the Botanic Garden you'll see the imposing building of the Brooklyn Museum, also well worth a visit. As you can see, there's a lot to see in Brooklyn.

West of the park, relatively close by, is Green-Wood Cemetery, the resting place of key figures in New York history and a good spot for a distant view of Manhattan.

Neighborhoods near Prospect Park

And please don't leave without walking the elegant streets of the Brooklyn neighborhoods that ring the park. You'll see impressive mansions and rows of classic brownstones in Park Slope and Prospect Heights.

How to get to Prospect Park

There are several entrances and subway stations around the park (here's how to plan your subway trip).

My recommendation is to get off at the Grand Army Plaza station (2, 3, 4 lines) so you can enter through the main entrance I mentioned earlier.

This entrance sits at one of the most monumental intersections in Brooklyn, where the Brooklyn Public Library building also stands out, one of New York's Beaux-Arts gems.

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Prices:
Free admission

Hours:
5 am to 1 am